Pages

Thursday, May 18, 2006

I love monkeys. Why? Because they're cute and so human-like. It seems lately science has made some incredible discoveries concerning our genetic cousins. So I decided to do a quick collection of stories on monkeys that have made scientific headlines in the last week or so:

Monkeys scream code words.Klaus Zuberbuhler of the University of St. Andrews, UK has found that putty-nosed monkeys use vocal language in order to communicate with members of their troop. His findings are being published in the May 18th issue of Nature.

These african rainforest monkeys were seen and heard making two distinct calls in order to warn each other. The dominant male was put in charge of warning the others of two main dangers: eagles and big cats. If he gives a loud "pyow" warning, the monkeys flee up the trees to flee from an oncoming tiger or leopard. If his warning is a "hack" vocalization, the monkeys get down from above to keep from getting skewed by an eagle's sharp talons.

Interesting, when the female lets out any vocal warnings, the males continue to fatten themselves with bananas and coconuts, and ignore the call. Scientists noticed this occured most often on Sunday or when it was time to take out the trash. Scientists also heard the monkeys screaming "doo-bee" and I believe that's to warn the others of poop being flung.

Monkeys are chicken too.M. Keith Chen, Venkat Lakshminarayanan, and Laurie R. Santos recently published an article in the Journal of Political Economy in which they studied the behavior of capuchin monkeys in order to learn more about how humans develop risk-aversion types of behaviors in economic situations.

They presented the monkeys with two different types of payoffs:1) Spend a token on one piece of apple presented to them, but half the time the monkeys were given one bonus piece of foodOR2) Spend a token on two apple pieces, but half the time the monkeys got gyped and only got one piece of food instead

Economic theory dictates that consumers shouldn't really care which way to spend their tokens, since the outcomes are 50-50 shots at one or two pieces of delicious apple. However, the monkeys displayed risk-aversion behavior and overwhelmingly spent their tokens using payoff #1. Like humans, the monkeys weighed the chances of LOSS more than the odds of GAINS. In other words, they played the game to not lose instead of playing the game to win.

Also, many of the monkeys threw tantrums often seen at Wall Street and casinos when they only got one apple slice instead of the two they were shown. Yup, you guessed it, they flung their poop when extremely frustrated with the gamble.Hot monkey sex?Scientists have been studying the human genome, and comparing it to various apes. They came across a surprising and shocking discovery:

Humans and chimps might have gotten freaky with one another.

David Reich, a population geneticist at the Broad Institute and Harvard University, used a "molecular clock" in order to trace when humans, chimps, and gorillas' genes diverged. His findings were published May 17th in New Scientist. Tracing the lineage, scientists found evidence that humans and chimps might have mated.

They noted that chimps and humans are nearly identical with relation to the X-chromosome (the female chromosome) and using this molecular clock, it suggests that early humans and monkeys created hybrid offspring 6.3 million years ago.Does this mean there are humans out there that have this ingrained need to fling their poop?

This post brings me back to God vs. Darwin, and evolution. I seriously have a HUGE problem believing we evolved from monkeys. NOW, you're telling me PRIMATES AND HUMANS got it on????? ACK! I hope that's just doo-beeee!!:ducking:

angel, I think most boys under 15 have coprophilia. In fact, most guys I know still laugh at poop jokes.

jon, Thanks buddy.

WG, Many babies and kids play with their poop anyway.

dabich, It's a controversial argument, but I don't think you have to necessarily chose one OR the other. I believe in God, but I also believe he put in motion the wave of Mother Nature. Evolution is simply a part of that.

I have the ingrained need to throw poop. I'm banned from the Washington D.C., San Diego, and Dallas zoos for acting on this undesirable urge and lobbing logs at the chimps behind bars. They look at me like I'm some kind of freak, well I'll show them those damn monkeys!

As it happens, ravens (which are surprisingly social birds) also use vocal cues to warn against specific predators (those from above vs. from below). So that vocal cue stuff's not so special. But if you could find a monkey who quoth "Nevermore", you'd have something.

I adore to watch the monkeys. I remember when I was small (eons ago) a baby monkey holding onto my little finger through the bars of his cage at the zoo. Then there was the scarier time when some of the chimps at Chester Zoo caught a duck who swam to close to their island and they proceeded to have a game of catch with it.The duck was rescued by a keeper and { I think ) it was ok ...

Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys' true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

This is a sensitive subject. The capuchin lab at Yale has been built and maintained to make the monkeys as comfortable as possible, and especially to allow them to carry on in a natural state. The introduction of money was tricky enough; it wouldn't reflect well on anyone involved if the money turned the lab into a brothel. To this end, Chen has taken steps to ensure that future monkey sex at Yale occurs as nature intended it.

But these facts remain: When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for food and, on occasion, sex. In other words, they behaved a good bit like the creature that most of Chen's more traditional colleagues study: Homo sapiens.

As you already know, I work with a theatre company called The Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre. We once got a voicemail from someone who was contemplating coming to see one of our shows, but wanted to make sure that we weren't harming the monkeys in any way. Duh. People actually think we're using monkeys as actors? Well, maybe it's photos like this that confuse them

The humans/chimps mating thing is grrrross, and I don't believe it for a split second. Poppycock!

The female monkeys who are being ignored need to learn the art of testicular squeezing. For some reason, the males ears perk up when their balls are firmly squeezed. Human males have this same reaction, although the human females may not be heard over the cries of the males unless they raise their voices significantly.

Post a Comment

About Me

Blogging since 2005.
Medical sales warrior by day, writing ninja by night...
I am the author of The Mechanica Wars series. The first book, Dragonfly Warrior, will be published in January, 2014 by 4 Wing Press.
I love science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, biographies, and chocolate chip cookies.
info@jaynoel.com